1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to apparatus for electrolytically plating and etching metallic workpieces and more particularly to a means for detecting and responding to an inappropriate electrical polarity at the workpiece being processed.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The processes of electrolytic plating and etching are well known in the art, as are the standard pieces of equipment used to perform these processes. While the art is profuse with equipment design to provide large amounts of power and high speed detection of abnormal power flows, there appears to be a dearth of apparatus which is comparatively simple in design yet capable of detecting and responding to the day-to-day variety of wiring and operator errors. Superficially such problems may seem mundane and therefore easily corrected; nevertheless, they frequently appear and often destroy workpieces having a worth in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. A wiring error or part failure at the rectifying power supply, an accidental actuation of the reversal switch at the power supply, a connection of the workpiece to the wrong bus bar, and the failure of an operator to terminate a preparatory etch sequence in a timely manner are representative situations which have been encountered, and which, are specifically addressed and overcome by the invention described herein.